Their routine, which aired on state-owned Channel One, was based on "Life is Beautiful," the Academy Award-winning Italian movie about a Jewish father who pretends for the sake of his small son that their internment in a Nazi camp is just a game.

Navka, 41, who won gold in ice dancing for Russia at the 2006 Turin Olympics, and Burkovsky, a 33-year-old theater actor, told Russian media on Sunday that it was their way of paying homage to Holocaust victims.

"You have to keep in mind that this is being done on Russian television," said Efraim Zuroff, director of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center who described the performance as "quite kitschy" but added that in the Soviet Union media and officials did not dwell on the Holocaust so any discussion of it Russia should be welcomed.

Peskov told reporters on Monday that his wife's dance routine is not something for the Kremlin to comment on, but said: "I'm proud of my wife. This is all I can say."

While some Russians were indignant at what some saw as mockery of the memory of the dead, others posted messages of support on Navka's Instagram account, saying that the dance brought tears to their eyes.

In 1996, France's synchronized swimming team had to scrap its program, which depicted the arrival of Jewish women in death camps and their final march to the gas chambers, following an intervention by the French sports minister. The routine was also based on a movie and set to music from Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List."